This invention relates in general to earth working equipment and, more specifically, to an improved ripper tool for use with excavating equipment.
Conventional backhoes, using a digging bucket, often encounter poor soil conditions making digging very difficult. Often the ground to be worked is rocky, frozen or simply very well-packed and dense, such as compacted adobe, decomposed granite roads, etc. In such cases, some means must be provided to break up the hardened ground before a backhoe bucket or other excavating means can be used to cmplete the excavation.
Backhoe buckets or scoops often have a plurality of short teeth along the bucket edge. Since a number of cutting edges contact the ground at the same time, penetration into hard ground is very limited. Attachments having one or a few longer teeth are sometimes used to improve digging effectiveness.
A wide variety of cutting and ripping attachments have been designed for use with or attachment to backhoes or other excavating means. In order to concentrate the penetrating or earth breaking force of the ripper, many prior art devices utilize a single ripper tooth as the earth breaking attachment. While often effective, a single tooth only penetrates the ground over a relatively narrow area. Stresses induced in the single tooth and in the means attaching it to the earth-working equipment often result in premature failure. A single tooth also tends to wear rapidly and require frequent replacement.
Using two or a few long parallel teeth has resulted in greater wear resistance, but decreased ripping effectiveness. In general, a single tooth gives greatest penetration but a short effective life while plural teeth provide a longer useful life with lower efficiency.
Thus, there is a continuing need for a ground ripping tool for excavating equipment which combines effective ripping with long wearing characteristics.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a ripping tool which more rapidly breaks up hard, dense soil.
Another object of this invention is to provide a ground ripping tool having a longer useful life.
A further object of this invention is to provide a ground ripping tool adapted for use with a variety of earth-working machines.